


Untouched

by nerigby96



Category: Martin and Lewis
Genre: Angst and Feels, Anxiety, Hotels, Intimacy, Love, M/M, Masturbation, Partnership, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:15:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22033909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerigby96/pseuds/nerigby96
Summary: The 1950s.Jerry notices that Dean's a little different tonight. Then he finds out why.
Relationships: Jerry Lewis/Dean Martin
Comments: 10
Kudos: 21





	Untouched

Backstage, before the final show of the night, Jerry looks at Dean and something’s different. He just knows it. He looks at his partner and _knows_. His heart thuds in his head and he hardly realises they’ve been on until it’s over. The audience doesn’t notice, thank God. Then, before he has a chance to think, they’re back at the hotel, taking the stairs to their floor. Jerry sneaks peaks at Dean, whose brow is furrowed. Jerry wants to stroke his face, smooth away his troubled thoughts, but something stops him.

They have their own suites. Jerry stops at his door, turns to say goodnight to Dean, but he’s standing too close, and his large soft fingers are stroking Jerry’s palm. Not holding, not pulling or guiding. Just stroking, the middle and index fingers caressing skin that burns and shivers at their touch. Jerry opens his mouth; his breath catches, something tangles in his tongue, and nothing comes out. Dean looks at him. Jerry thinks he knows what that look means.

In silence, Jerry opens the door. Dean walks past him, drops his jacket over the chair, and disappears into the bathroom. The tap runs; Jerry watches his partner’s shadow flit in the slim bar of light under the door. Otherwise, the room is dark.

Jerry undresses. He could climb into bed like this, in just his boxers and undershirt. But he wants to try something else. He takes off the rest of his clothes and pulls out a pair of silk pyjamas from the dresser. He had ten pairs made, all embroidered with his initials, and as he pulls them on, he pictures his partner’s deft fingers opening the buttons and shivers. He pictures them pooling at his feet and has to shake his head; he doesn’t want to get started without Dean. He hurries to perch on the bed, hands clasped in his lap, waiting.

The bathroom door opens. Jerry watches Dean emerge. They look at each other for a moment. At least, Jerry hopes Dean’s looking at him; the light from the bathroom casts him in dark relief, so all he really has is that familiar outline. The door drifts almost closed, leaving one shaft of yellowish light to illuminate the chair opposite the bed, and Jerry’s eyes adjust, the sight of his partner stopping his breath. Dean moves. Jerry’s heart thuds and almost stops dead, because he’s not coming to the bed, not coming to his little partner.

He’s going to the chair.

_I’m wrong_ , Jerry thinks. _Or he’s changed his mind. He wanted to and now he doesn’t and he can’t say it._

Dean sits heavily. Jerry can see him properly now, a little dishevelled but still impossibly handsome. He takes out a cigarette and lights it, puffing meditatively. He taps it in the ashtray on the dresser and then, putting the smoke back between his teeth, he opens his belt.

Jerry’s moved to sit with his legs under him; he can already feel them numbing, but it’s so far away now, so completely unimportant. As he watches his partner, the only thing he feels is the stiffening at the front of his pyjama pants.

There’s a soft clink, a zipper going down, and then Dean is taking himself out into the open.

He’s seen Dean before. Getting changed backstage, showering after shows or at country clubs, skinny dipping with Tony, and sometimes later after Tony leaves, if Jerry’s a good boy and doesn’t get too excited. But that’s different. He’s never seen Dean like this before. Never seen him get like this, the way Jerry gets when they’re alone together. He’s felt it, once or twice, and when he does he knows he shouldn’t mention it, knows to keep his hands to himself. That’s easier now; he can’t reach anyway.

Dean’s hand moves. He’s leaning back in the chair, eyes closed, a calm expression on his face; it’s like he’s alone, casually stroking and taking his time, drawing deeply on the cigarette, a little orange flame sizzling in the dark, then letting smoke curl from his nostrils. He readjusts, sighs softly, quickens, but still with that casual air about him, caught in snatches as the cigarette flares and dies.

But Jerry’s the furthest from casual he’s ever been. He cranes forward, dry mouth hanging open. He wets his lips and tries to swallow. His fingers claw the bedspread; they itch to pull himself out, to join Dean, but he’s frozen, transfixed. If Dean were with him on the bed, he could convince himself it’s a dream, but this is too real, too much, so different from anything he would imagine for himself, for both of them. It’s almost brutal, almost awful, but perfect in its way, so fitting, Dean at a distance while Jerry aches and yearns and wonders how he can be hard just watching that hand, those large fingers move up and down, almost lazy, almost unconscious.

As if he hasn’t been painfully hard since that first glimpse of his partner in the bathroom door, backlit, hair damp and slightly mussed, shirt untucked, bowtie hanging loose.

With every stroke, Jerry feels himself stagger closer to the edge, and God, how can it be possible? Since that brush of Dean’s fingers on his palm outside the room, they haven’t touched, haven’t even come close; yet Jerry’s hands twist in the covers and he pants, sweats, throbs untouched. Untouched, yes. But fuck if he can’t feel Dean’s phantom hand around him, stroking, tugging, coaxing.

_He’s close_ , Jerry thinks. _I’m close. But how? How can I be—_

Dean’s head snaps back; he grunts; his teeth clamp shut and slice the dead cig at the filter.

In that same instant, Jerry’s back spasms; he gasps; his hips buck.

There is one pristine moment of ecstatic silence.

Then there is heavy breathing. Jerry’s head swims in the heat of the room, which suddenly feels so small; sweat clings to every fibre of his being, seems to coat the walls and seep into the carpet; and another scent, that heady mingling aroma of his partner and himself, hangs between them in an unspoken acknowledgement of the line they have crossed. Dean is slumped in the chair. The broken cigarette sits forgotten on his heaving chest. His arms hang limp, fingers almost brushing the floor, and for the moment he’s left himself, soft and spent, in the open.

Jerry closes his eyes, leans forward to rest his head on the bed. He’s found a blessedly cool spot and lets out a long breath. He can’t move anymore. He wonders if he’ll ever be able to again. He needs to wash, to change, but not now, not yet. Not while his partner still sits opposite, not while his partner needs to know how much Jerry loves him.

Jerry looks up. Dean’s eyes are open and he’s tucked himself away. He looks at Jerry, bemused and a little sleepy, and then looks down, flicking the broken cigarette to the floor. With a grunt, he pushes off the arms of the chair. He sways a little, and Jerry wants to go to him, but his legs won’t move; even if they did, they’d collapse under him, he’s sure. So, instead, he watches his partner go into the bathroom and shut the door. The light goes on, and once again that shadow flickers and water runs, but more this time, the shower, Jerry knows.

_Move now._ But he’s stuck, sticking. _C’mon, Joey, don’t look all small and sad when he comes back. Sit up, at least._ His back aches, but he straightens, extricates his legs, unfolds slowly, joints creaking like old hinges. _Guess this ain’t such a good lubricant._ He chuckles thickly, sniffs, tries to rub life into his tingling feet.

Dean comes back then, standing in the doorway. He’s silhouetted again, and Jerry can tell he’s not wearing anything. It doesn’t matter now. Too late for any kind of mystery or shyness. Not that his partner’s ever been shy about this, thank God. He’s held Jerry close with nothing but his boxers separating them before now, so it’s no big deal that he walks by bare-assed and lights a cigarette from the pack on the dresser, staring at the wall.

_Oh_ , Jerry thinks. _My turn._

Silk pyjamas sticking to him with more than sweat, Jerry climbs off the bed. He can feel himself trickling down his thighs, pooling in the folds of the hot fabric. Somehow, he makes it to the bathroom without collapsing in a moistly panting heap. He pushes the door to and grips the sink, looking at his haggard face in the mirror.

_He didn’t even touch me._ Jerry laughs shakily. _What kind of power is that?_ It was a little scary. His partner sat feet away, and Jerry was on his best behaviour – he didn’t even try to touch himself, not that he could move, paralysed as he was in that desperate ecstatic need to see what happened, and in pitiful terror that _if_ he moved, if he tried to join in, Dean might get spooked and stop – and still he ended up sticky and hot.

So much for fancy pyjamas.

He balls them up and throws them in the corner with Dean’s discarded clothes. He showers. He fills a glass with water from the tap and drains it. A retch threatens to bring it back up, but he fights it; he sips half of a second glass. Then he opens the door, but before he leaves and turns off the light, something catches at the corner of his eye, something high up on the wall by Dean’s chair. It makes sense. Jerry was contained in his pants, but where did Dean have to go? Only out, only up. Maybe there’s more. It must already be drying.

_God, what will the maid think?_

He turns off the light. It’s almost pitch dark now. He pulls on his boxers and undershirt and stumbles to the bed. He slips beneath the covers, so close to the edge of the mattress he may as well not bother, and stares into the darkness at his partner’s distant form.

_Say something._

Jerry reaches out, and with his index finger draws pictures between Dean’s shoulder blades. A heart, a face, a Star of David, anything. He writes messages, or fragments, just words. Maybe Dean’s asleep, or maybe he’s ignoring Jerry. But that’s okay. He doesn’t mind.

Then Dean’s soft chuckle, and his voice, that gorgeous drawl:

“Why’re you so far away?”

Jerry flushes in the dark, retracts his hand.

“I didn’t know.”

The bedsprings creak; Dean turns over to face his little partner and opens his arms. “C’mere.”

Jerry goes to him, curls into his chest, slots one leg between Dean’s and snuggles as close as he can. Dean’s bare breast rises and falls, taking Jerry’s head with it. It’s slow and calm, as if nothing has happened. Jerry focuses on this, on the steady heartbeat beneath, and tries to sync himself to Dean’s rhythm.

_Dean’s rhythm._ He sees that hand again, those large deft fingers; and beneath the water and the whiff of soap, Jerry thinks he can still smell the heat, the sweat. His heartbeat quickens, and his breath catches; Dean hushes him and runs his fingers up and down the knobs of Jerry’s spine.

He doesn’t want to cry, doesn’t want Dean to think less of him. He’s been such a good boy so far; he can’t ruin it now. But that word – _untouched_ – keeps bouncing off the inside of his skull.

_Dean touches me. He’s touching me now. He’s so kind and gentle. He kisses me, too. He lets me do lots of things. He’s so good to me._

_I wanna be good to him._

It’s too much, too hard to think that this is how it will be. If Dean will hold him like this forever, then so be it. What a beautiful forever _that_ would be. But Jerry doesn’t know if he’ll survive the other things.

_Kiss me and touch me and do those things_ now _, Paul_ , he thinks. _Now or not at all. Don’t sit away from me and make me get like that and then pretend you’re Dad all over again._

He thinks all this and more and hates himself for it. His fingers try to grip, but there’s nothing to hold, nothing but Dean’s shoulders and arms and back, and Jerry holds as tight as he can, can hear Dean whispering such lovely things in his ear.

Because Dean _is_ lovely. Even if he can’t do those other things. Jerry thinks about how different he was tonight. He thinks about how quiet, how close, how those fingertips gently, almost hesitantly slipped against his palm. Like he was asking.

But something happened in the room. Maybe in the bathroom, when they were apart for just a minute. Maybe if Jerry had taken his hand and kept him by the bed, it would be different now.

_No use thinking these things._ He sighs a little as Dean’s lips brush his forehead. _Maybe we’d be lying here after being together different. But maybe you’d wake up tomorrow and he wouldn’t be here. And when you saw him next he’d look at you funny and wouldn’t want you should touch him anymore. Maybe he’d regret it and get sick of looking at you. Maybe you’d break up the act, even._

He shudders. It’s a horrible, ridiculous thing to think. He hopes Dean hasn’t somehow read his mind, but just in case, he kisses his jaw and tells him he loves him. Dean chuckles softly and tells him he knows, tells him it's late, tells him to sleep now. Jerry nods and nuzzles his neck, feels Dean's arms squeeze him tight and then hold loose and gentle, feels his breath against his skin as he drifts. Jerry isn't far behind. Soon they're dozing. When Jerry wakes, with the sun pouring in like honey through the curtains, his heart will swell at the sight of his sleeping partner. Then he'll nip Dean's earlobe, and Dean will wake and pretend to be angry, and they'll play Brothers for a little while, until it's time to go. For now, though, they hold each other; and Jerry knows they'll go on holding each other for as long as Dean will have him.


End file.
